1. Field
This application relates to packaging for coiled filamentary material. More particularly, this application relates to a payout tube assembly for packaging of coiled filamentary material.
2. State of the Art
U.S. Pat. No. #2,634,922 to Taylor describes the winding of flexible wire, cable or filamentary material (hereinafter “wire”, which is to be broadly understood in the specification, abstract and claims) around a mandrel in a figure-eight pattern such that a package of material is obtained having a plurality of layers surrounding a central core space. By rotating the mandrel and by controllably moving a traverse that guides the wire laterally relative to mandrel, the layers of the figure-eight pattern are provided with aligned holes (cumulatively a “pay-out hole”) such that the inner end of the flexible material may be drawn out through the payout hole. When a package of wire is wound in this manner, the wire may be unwound through the payout hole without rotating the package, without imparting a rotation in the wire around its axis (i.e., twisting), and without kinking. This provides a major advantage to the users of the wire. Coils that are wound in this manner and dispense from the inside-out without twists, tangles, snags or overruns are known in the art as REELEX—(a trademark of Reelex Packaging Solutions, Inc.) type coils. REELEX-type coils are wound to form a generally short hollow cylinder with a radial opening formed at one location in the middle of the cylinder. A payout tube may be located in the radial opening and the end of the wire making up the coil may be fed through the payout tube for ease in dispensing the wire. The payout tube and coil are packaged in a box and the entire package of the coiled cable has become known as a REELEX BOX.
Over the past fifty-plus years, improvements have been made to the original invention described in U.S. Pat. No. #2,634,922. Over the past fifty-plus years, an increasing number of different types of wires with different characteristics are being wound using the systems and methods described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,634,922 and the subsequent improvements. For example, the figure-eight type winding has been used for twisted-pair type cable (e.g., Category 5, Category 6 and the like), drop cable, fiber-optic cable, electrical building wire (THHN), etc.
For manually packaged REELEX BOXes, there are two basic cardboard box designs in use. One design has the coil loaded from the “square” or “square side” of the box, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 8,944,358. That arrangement of the box is termed a “sideload” box. This coil and box arrangement is typically used with a plastic locking ring or “PLR” and a plastic payout tube to secure the payout tube to one panel in the box, such as the PLR shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,272 (Wallace et al.). Typically, during assembly, the payout tube is inserted through the payout hole of the coil before the coil is introduced into the box and then the locking ring is pushed onto the payout tube from outside the box while the payout tube held steady from within the box. Thus, the PLR requires the operator to push the inside of the tube up against the PLR in order to secure it to the box.
The second basic cardboard box design for manually packaged REELEX BOXes has the coil loaded at one of the rectangular panels or “ends” of the box. That arrangement of the box is termed an “endload” or “topload” box. The topload box arrangement is typically used with a plastic or paperboard tube that has a flange, which is glued to a panel of the box, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,086,012. Owing to the glue connection of the flange of the tube to the panel of the box, a PLR is not used.
One advantage of the topload box is that the topload box construction is significantly stronger than the sideload box construction. Furthermore, the topload design allows for multiple panels to fold over each other where the coil is inserted, which means hand hold cutouts placed at these panels are particularly sturdy, as they pass through multiple panels of cardboard, as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,086,012. Also, recycling a topload using a paperboard payout tube is simpler than for a sideload box using a PLR, because only paperboard need be recycled instead of plastic and paperboard.